Valerie Goodwin's Workshop

Last weekend I attended a workshop by Valerie Goodwin and created the above map piece.  Valerie had several templates printed out for us as well as the towers printed on fabric.  I'm not for one "doing a project" but I did have a great time.  The highlight of the whole weekend was Valerie's method of creating her background.  That in itself was worth the workshop fee.  I hope I can do justice to the process:  crinoline is used as the foundation (I've been using crinoline in my fabric portraits and love how it allows the finished quilt to be very flat with a straight edge) sew pieces of fabric down using the flip and sew method until the crinoline is covered - any fabric raw edges are machine or hand stitched down.  Next comes some fused pieces of transparent fabric like organza, which can be painted or dyed.  Then some painting - roughly and only in places.  That's the background.  I just love it.

So I came home and created the background to my "3 of Clubs" - oh, I know I did 3 turtles but they'll work for the playing card challenge of my fiber group FAN - Fiber Artists Network.  I followed Valerie's technique and added some stamping as well.

Also, one of the other members of FAN shared a technique of using fused transparent fabric like organza and tracing a motif (the tiny Pisa tower in the above piece and the turtles in this piece) and then fusing the motif to another fabric or to the background.  Cool!